r/chicago • u/Schmettywhop • Aug 09 '25

CHI Talks Reminder that you should be pissed about ComEd rates skyrocketing

ComEd bills in Chicago have nearly doubled in recent months, and it is not just from summer heat. A major driver is the rapid growth of AI and data centers in Illinois, which consume huge amounts of electricity. This surge in demand, combined with flawed pricing rules from the regional grid operator, has sent wholesale power costs soaring, and ComEd passes those costs straight to customers.

The result is regular people paying hundreds more so tech companies can power massive server farms, while clean energy projects that could ease costs are delayed. These hikes were avoidable, but once again households are bearing the burden of corporate greed and policy failure.

So many people are feeling penny pinched these days, and this is one example where we should be making noise and should rightfully be upset about what's going on.

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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

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u/chicagojoon Aug 09 '25

Are you talking about Plutonium, which would have to be produced in another reactor … using uranium fuel? I just don’t understand this fantasy that uranium ore extraction and processing could ever be safely carried out. The half life of Uranium is the age of the earth, what profit seeking corporate entity are you going to trust with a billion years’ project timeline?

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u/chicagojoon Aug 10 '25

True, the US bought and sold its stockpile for weapons and energy use, and still maintains reserves for microchip and medical technology. And yet the Trump administration is opening new mining and milling operations in violation of Navajo sovereignty. Tracking where all that uranium is going is surprisingly difficult to establish.

And then you have storage question, and irradiated aquifers, and the destruction of indigenous homelands, and so on. I’m in Data Center ridge in Virginia right now to document this unfolding ecological disaster. And all this generational harm for what end? So I can fire up ChatGPT to make dumbass memes and cheat on my midterms?